Description
The Countess is portrayed wearing a fur-trimmed turban and an ermine-lined, golden-yellow gown. Attached to her bodice is a large jeweled brooch from which is suspended a baroque pearl.
In a 1971 letter to the museum, Kenneth Garlick described the picture as a "nice early, and perhaps studio version" of the portrait by the same artist that belongs to the Duke of Sutherland, Dunrobin Castle.
Lawrence exhibited the original portrait at the Royal Academy in 1816 (no. 48). The composition in our painting has been cropped slightly along the lower edge, perhaps as a result of a lining process.
Elizabeth, Marchioness of Stafford, was born in 1765, married in 1785, and died in 1839. She was Countess of Sutherland in her own right, and after 1833, first Duchess of Sutherland.

Conservation

Date

Description

Narrative

9/09/1957

Examination

examined for condition

1/15/1958

Treatment

cleaned; coated; inpainted

Provenance
Grandson of the Steward of the Dunrobin Estates [reportedly a gift from the Duke]; T. J. Blakeslee, New York [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, December 1898, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.